Explorations of Lotus Asia
by I Before A Except After K
Summary: Reimu and Marisa find an object from the outside world that makes them curious about what's beyond Gensokyo. As a result, they decide to cross the border and see for themselves. Reviews are appreciated.


**Chapter 1: The Curious Object**

It was a relatively quiet day at the shrine. Marisa had dropped by early in the morning to spend the day slacking off with Reimu, lounging around at the back of Reimu's run-down shrine. Things had been relatively uneventful for most of the day, and Reimu had just stepped outside to perform her afternoon check of the donation box.

As she walked, Reimu's eyes swept around, taking in the scenery. The summer sun shone brightly on everything exposed to its rays. Suika was sleeping peacefully in the shade of a nearby cherry tree, taking advantage of the long shadows caused by the afternoon sun, her bottle of sake still loosely clutched in her hand. Reimu briefly marveled at the little oni's ability to sleep so soundly despite drinking herself into unconsciousness. Setting these thoughts aside, she continued on her quest to check for donations.

As Reimu rounded the corner of the shrine, a glare of sunlight accosted her eyes. Looking towards the source of the offending light, she spotted a strange black object lying on the ground. Having not seen it on either of her two previous trips to the donation box that day, and having never seen anything like it anywhere in Gensokyo, her curiosity about this strange object overcame her desire to check the constantly-empty donation box. Reimu picked up the curious object and examined it.

From what she could tell, it was from the outside world, as it appeared to be made of a material that was not found in Gensokyo. It was incredibly smooth, with rounded edges, and incredibly reflective surfaces. On one side, it had a flat surface that had a lighter rectangular area that covered a majority of the face of the object. Beneath the rectangle was a small, circular depression. On opposite side, which Reimu quickly decided must be the back, there was the image of a white, half-eaten apple.

"Hey Marisa, come take a look at this!" Reimu shouted.

Back inside the shrine, Marisa rolled her eyes, annoyed at what she thought was a call to see one of the almost non-existent donations. "So you got a donation for once, I don't need to see it," she called back.

"It's not a donation. It's something I found. It looks like something from the outside world." Reimu responded. "Come out here and look at it."

Marisa sat up, using her broom as a crutch to pull herself to her feet. She was a little unsteady at first, having unwisely challenged Suika to a sake drinking contest early that morning. Shortly thereafter, Marisa emerged from the shrine with a mixture of annoyance and curiosity on her face. Reimu held out the strange object, and Marisa gave it a cursory glance, her curiosity quickly being replaced with boredom as she could find nothing interesting about it.

"Looks useless, ze. Maybe Kourin could tell us what it's supposed to be." Marisa suggested, handing the object back to Reimu.

"It's the first interesting thing that's happened all day, and I'm bored, so let's do it." Reimu agreed.

Their course decided, the duo set off down the shrine steps which joined with the path to the human village. As they reached the bottom steps, they spotted Sakuya with several bags in hand, following the path away from the human village, obviously returning to her mistress after a day of shopping for groceries to be included as secondary ingredients for Remilia's rather extravagant tastes in blood dishes.

As they passed, Sakuya caught Reimu's eyes, and both parties paused for a moment. Sakuya spoke. "Reimu, if you're heading for the human village, I should give you fair warning. A certain idiot ice fairy has been following me since I left my lady's mansion. I thought I'd warn you so that you might have the chance to avoid a bothersome encounter."

Bowing in thanks, Reimu and Marisa briefly locked eyes for a moment before simultaneously taking to the air. As the pair reached the outskirts of the human village, they landed. Courtesy dictated that they walked when their destination was located within the village, as it was considered quite rude to touch down on someone's doorstep.

Nearing Kourindou, Marisa called out to Rinnosuke. "Hey Kooouuuuuurrrrriiiiin! We got somethin t'show ya!"

Inside the shop, Rinnosuke sighed at the sound of the nickname that signaled his two most frequent visitors and least frequent customers. Quickly grabbing one of the more valuable of his recent acquisitions, a magical sphere with an ⑧ on it that could predict the future, Rinnosuke made his way to the back room and hid it where witches were unlikely to find it and subsequently "borrow" it. As the owner of Kourindou returned from the back room, the front door of his shop slid open, revealing the black-white witch and the red-white miko.

Since Reimu was the one in possession of the of the object, she was the one who spoke. "Rinnosuke, I was wondering if you could use your ability to identify this object. I found it on the shrine grounds while I was sweeping up."

Rinnosuke highly doubted that the lazy miko standing in front of him had actually been sweeping up, but decided that challenging the truth of that statement would be a waste of his time. Instead, he said: "Fine, but I should really start charging you for this."

"Even if you said that, you'd still never make any money with that skill of yours," Marisa scoffed.

Rinnosuke momentarily pondered whether Marisa was implying that his skill wasn't needed often enough to be profitable, or that he'd still never receive payment for any of his services rendered to the two thieving girls. He concluded that while the latter was almost certainly true, the witch probably meant the former.

Ignoring Marisa's quip, he held out his hand for the object that the shrine maiden had brought for him to identify. Reimu handed it to him, and he set to work with his talent. "This object appears to have two names. It is known as both a smart-phone and as an iPhone. It is a type of telephone that also acts as a computer."

Reimu scrunched her eyebrows up in curiosity. "What does it mean for an item to have two names?"

Rinnosuke frowned at their ignorance. He gave a gesture that indicated that they should sit down, then began to explain. "An item that has two names is much like a person or a youkai. One name indicates its species or its family, while the other represents the name that it has been given or chosen for itself. Until a being receives a name, it will only have the base traits common to those it shares its surname name with. Only with a given name does it gain a personality and a unique appearance. Why do you think all children look the same when they are born? They have not yet received a name. That is why we name children immediately after birth. The same applies to objects such as these smart-phones."

"I guess that makes sense, ze." Marisa said. While they never said it out loud, both Reimu and herself had long since learned that Rinnosuke's explanations were full of conjecture and not to be taken too seriously.

Rinnosuke continued. "While I could continue to explain such simple things to you, I confess I'm more interested in having a closer look at this iPhone. It is quite unlike the other computers and telephones that have come into my possession."

Of the many computers and telephones that Rinnosuke had encountered, none had appeared anything like this. He had attempted to get them to perform the functions they were supposedly capable of, but he had long since given up on them. They had far too many buttons for him to figure out whatever combination was necessary to elicit a response, and he also suspected that they were meant to be kept in one place with the right conditions in order to function.

The device before him, however, seemed designed to be mobile, and as far as he could see, there were only three buttons on it. He experimentally pressed a button on the top of the device, and to his great surprise and pleasure, the rectangle on the front lit up. Spotting the light, Reimu and Marisa hastily moved to look curiously over Rinnosuke's shoulders.

"So _this_ is what those computers are supposed to do?" Marisa asked to no one.

The three of them stared at the device in fascination for a few moments before Reimu reached around and tentatively touched the screen. A list of songs appeared on the screen, the "Music" icon having been in the spot where Reimu touched the screen. The trio paused for another moment at the sudden change on the screen.

Reimu was the first to recover. "I think it works by touching the picture. Let me see it, Rinnosuke."

So euphoric over the sudden breakthrough was Rinnosuke that he didn't think twice before handing it to Reimu. She almost snatched it out of his hands and sat down, with Rinnosuke reluctantly getting up to join Marisa in watching over shoulders.

Reimu touched the screen again, this time with purpose, touching an entry which caught her interest slightly more than the others. All three of them jumped as the device started making noise. The sound was very foreign to them, but they quickly realized that it was music. After they had calmed down from the sudden sound, they began listening to the music. It was unlike any song that they had ever heard, but all three enjoyed it immensely.

Continuing to experiment, Reimu soon came across a calendar that contained a rather detailed schedule. Among the items on the schedule was an entry labeled "Hakurei shrine." Considering where she had found the device, and this new piece of information, Reimu soon realized that someone had visited her shrine in the outside world. If the outside world's shrine had had a visitor, then there was the chance that they had left a donation, and that meant that she _had_ to check.

Reimu stopped fiddling with the device and spoke. "I think whoever owned this device was at my shrine in the outside world."

Marisa moved her gaze from the object in Reimu's hands to Reimu herself. "Didn't you say that the outside world's version of your shrine was abandoned?"

"I figured that no one would want to go to a shrine without a shrine maiden, but I guess I was wrong about that."

Marisa smirked. "Maybe nobody wants to come to your shrine _because_ there's a shrine maiden there, and it'd be really popular if you weren't around, ze."

Reimu scowled. "That's not funny, Marisa."

"Whatever. If you're going to the outside world, I wanna come, ze. After seeing what these computer things can do, I wanna see if I can find someone who can teach me how to make mine work, ze."

Rinnosuke looked at Marisa. "You know, you never did pay me for that, so by all rights it would be _my_ computer."

"Eh? In that case, you can have it back when I die," Marisa said, as if that settled the matter.

Reimu stood up. "Well I'm going, now. If you want to visit the outside world with me Marisa, I suggest you follow me."

Reimu began making her way out of the shop, and Marisa quickly hopped up and followed suit

Rinnosuke took a moment to process this and looked up. "Can I come with you? I've wanted to visit the outside world for a long time. I'd like to learn a bit more about the place where my wares come from."

Reimu paused at the door and looked back at Rinnosuke, then shrugged. "Come with us if you want, but if you go off on your own, I won't wait around for you when we come back."

Rinnosuke thought about this for a moment, then decided that he'd rather not risk getting stranded. "Fine then. You two have fun out there. Hopefully you two will get your fill of the outside world and stop stealing my wares." However, Reimu and Marisa did not hear this last part as they had already left.

The sun was getting low as the two left Kourindou. They had lost track of time in their fascination with the strange device from the outside world. When they landed on the grounds of the shrine, Reimu made her way into the shrine's main building, with Marisa not far behind.

"So how exactly do you leave Gensokyo?" Marisa asked.

"This shrine is dedicated to the god of the Hakurei border and I'm the shrine's miko. How do you _think_ I do it?"

Marisa stroked her head in contemplation for a moment, then said "I dunno, ze. Why don't you just tell me?"

Reimu sighed. "I call the god of the border into my body and use the god to pass through, idiot."

Marisa facepalmed at having missed something so obvious.

Reimu reached out to Marisa. "Take my hand. That way we can both pass through."

Marisa reached out and grabbed Reimu's hand, and the world began to fade, then just as quickly came back into focus.

The two looked around, and the first thing they noticed was that the shrine was in considerably better shape than the one they had just left. From somewhere unseen, they could hear a female voice that sounded rather agitated.

"Damn it, where the hell did it go?" The voice was getting closer. "I could've sworn I left it-" The door opened, there stood a blonde-haired girl wearing a a red skirt, a red ribbon in her hair, two red hairpins, and a blouse that was such a light shade of pink that it was almost white. She cut her words off abruptly when she saw Reimu and Marisa standing there. "All right, who are you two and what are you doing trespassing in such a sacred place?"

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Before you ask, no, the girl is not an OC. She's not encountered in any game, and she doesn't appear in any supplementary material, but she is a creation of ZUN. If you can figure out her name before the next chapter, give yourself a cookie. (Edit: Dead Turtle pointed out that she's pretty famous now, so derp)

Anyway, I made sure to read Curiosities of Lotus Asia (which I ended up referencing in the title) before writing Rinnosuke, and I think I did a pretty good job with him and his tendency to pull information out of thin air. Hopefully I didn't disappoint.


End file.
